


The Confrontation

by WardenCommanderCousland



Series: Return to Duty Universe [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: One Shot, Past Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Post-Reaper War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 14:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11922972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WardenCommanderCousland/pseuds/WardenCommanderCousland
Summary: Stranded on an unknown planet, Garrus and Kaidan have a confrontation.





	The Confrontation

“Do you want to come down?” Liara asked into the comm. Kaidan hovered outside her office, tying to subtly eavesdrop on the conversation. “Tali recovered more movies on her datapad. She wants to watch _Fleet and Flotilla_ and I think a movie night would be good for all of us.”

“You go on,” the turian’s disembodied voice filled the room. He’d been hiding in Shepard’s cabin for days, ever since he'd refused to hang her name up on the Normandy's memorial wall. “I’m fine up here.”

The comm pinged off. “You may as well go talk to him instead of huffing outside my door.” Liara said to the open air. Kaidan started, but managed to compose himself and walk away without any further indication that he’d heard her.

The elevator ride was painfully slow. With all the upgrades Cerberus fitted into the SR-2, they couldn’t be bothered with installing a lift that moved faster than a sedated elcor?

When the doors finally swept open to the vestibule outside Shepard’s cabin, it occurred to Kaidan that he’d never been invited up. The knot that formed in his stomach every time he thought of the fight on Horizon almost two years ago was growing. If only he’d kept a level head, if only he’d given her a second to speak, maybe she wouldn’t have gone running to another man. He’d tried to apologize to Shepard, repeatedly, but she never gave him an inch to maneuver. She was lost to him. Still, his blood boiled when he saw Garrus lying on the bed, swiping through a datapad, the titanium plaque etched with Shepard's name lying next to him.

“You’re not the only one who misses her, you know,” Kaidan said icily as the door swished shut behind him.

Garrus sat up and stared Kaidan down with dark, cold eyes. “That may be, but I’m the only one who hasn’t given up hope.”

Kaidan felt a flash of pain burst in his skull, close to where his implant lay. He knew he was supposed to be taking it easy, but he hit Garrus with a stasis that left the turian dangling two feet above the bed.

“You want to talk about giving up hope?” Kaidan snarled. “After Shepard got spaced, I spent a year alternating between hounding Alliance intel for word of the Normandy and pickling myself with every bottle of gin I could buy at the Citadel. Then I spent another year finally allowing myself to accept that she was gone. Even the thought of going on a date felt like a betrayal.” He dropped Garrus back onto the bed with a muffled thud.

Garrus slid off the bed and pulled himself to his full height. Kaidan never liked how even the shortest turians towered over him, but he wasn’t about to stand down.

“You know who else stalked Alliance intel?” Garrus said, the level tone of his voice betrayed by his twitching mandible and a hint of fury in his eyes. “Shepard. You were the first person whose whereabouts she asked for. She went to the Alliance, Anderson, Udina, even the Illusive Man when all of them failed her, and they all told her you were beyond her reach. She scoured every report for a hint of you, and the second we saw you on Horizon, it was like the weight of the galaxy was lifted from her shoulders. But you shut her down.”

Garrus paused, measuring his next words. “And when I say she was shut down, I mean it. It was like someone had hit the power switch on everything that made her Shepard except for attention to the mission." He took a step closer to Kaidan, glaring down at the top of his head. “You may have been carrying a silent torch for her for the last four years, but I’m the one who’s actually _been_ there beside her, even when my own head was so far up my ass that I could taste my gizzard. For months, I was the only person on board the Normandy who she could actually trust to watch her back. I went through the Omega-4 relay with her, led the charge to search for her when she was kidnapped by indoctrinated Alliance operatives, led her to Victus when she needed the Primarch, crawled through ruins on Tuchanka and damn near got eaten by a Thresher Maw _and_ blown up by multiple Reapers, and was at her side as we fought through every spirits-damned Cerberus troop on the Citadel.

“I watched her mourn you after Horizon and didn’t say a word all the times she visited you at Huerta. I let her make her own damn decision about us, instead of accusing her of cheating at every turn. She came to me of her own accord, even though it was pretty obvious she was still hurting, and I didn’t ask her to be with me until I knew she had walked away from you for good." He paused and turned away, looking back at the datapad's screen. “Yes, she may have turned to me while we were working with Cerberus, but I wouldn’t have let her if I didn’t already care for her.”

Garrus took a breath. “You need to stop punishing me for your mistakes and all of you need to let me handle this on my own. She would have.” He dropped the datapad on the bed and stalked out of the room. Kaidan heard the elevator call button chime and the faint hum as it carried the turian away.

He turned to the abandoned datapad. As Kaidan expected, it was a vid of Shepard. She was standing on one of the Citadel’s supports, aiming the Black Widow sniper rifle she’d always favored. She was in a dress and her black hair, which she’d allowed to grow long during her court martial, was fluttering in the wind.

A target tracked in the sky, but Shepard missed her shot. Kaidan knew it had to be on purpose; her prowess as a sniper was part of what earned her the N7 commission. “Don’t worry. I know there are other things you’re good at.”

Kaidan dropped the datapad back on the bed as Shepard’s laugh echoed from it.


End file.
